


The Winter Lord

by Avia_Isadora



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Banter, F/M, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29778504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avia_Isadora/pseuds/Avia_Isadora
Summary: Artanis of the Noldor met Celeborn of Doriath ages of the world ago.  This is how it happened.
Relationships: Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	The Winter Lord

Winter came. I do not like winter. I have seen enough of winter, crossing the trackless ice in our exile, to be done with winter forever. Sometimes I feel that there is still winter in my bones, that my heart froze to frost in that journey and lies still among our dead, those who fell and did not rise beneath that merciless black sky patterned with light, the only color in those lands. In my dreams I am there still.  
  
And so when winter came I passed it in Doriath. The caves of Menegroth are deep underground and heated from the hot springs and wells that carved them. One need not see a flake of snow if one did not wish to. Thingol was king in Doriath then, and though he was wroth with my kindred because of their misdeeds he did not bar his door to me because his wife wished otherwise. Perhaps he thought me more blameless than I was, or more harmless. That I have never been, nor blameless either, but many will overlook harm from youth and beauty that they would not tolerate otherwise.  
  
I had both in those days, glorious and carefree youth thinking that I knew much I did not, and beauty -- it was my power to leave men speechless, and I enjoyed it. Many have justly accused me of vanity, and not just in my youth, though I hope I have grown more circumspect in my targets. Then I cast myself heedlessly at everything and let the arrows fall where they might.  
  
Thus a winter in the palace of Thingol at Menegroth did not displease me. I should have the company of my dearest friend, Thingol's daughter Luthien, and a court full of amusements that could take place indoors. There would be games of chance and skill and beautiful things to make, glorious colors on the loom and in the thread to sew and embellish. There would be music and masques and revels, feasts and dances, every art that my people practice, for we glory in beauty and there is no higher honor than to vie in the accomplishment of joy.   
  
Still, by deep midwinter it had begun to grow stale. There was beauty and abundance, everything lit by golden lamps and never a trace of ice. And yet the music was much the same from day to day. The work was intricate on the loom, but even the most challenging brocade begins to pale after thirty yards. There were dances, but always the same partners over and over who said the same things, the same polite fictions and breathless avowals intended to lure me to some secluded alcove where they would express their admiration in the same bold but bland terms. Even Luthien and I were beginning to get tired of each other. Even the dearest of friends cannot whisper and coze for sixty days straight without running out of new things to say! I fear that we had snapped at one another once or twice by the time midwinter was accomplished. Amid the predictable order of our revels a new face stood out.  
  
I turned in the midst of a figured dance and caught a glimpse of him by the door, a man I had never seen before in the midst of the same faces again and again. It was only because he was new that he caught my eye. His hair was silver-gilt, but so was that of half Thingol's court. He was of average height and build. We are a beautiful people -- we are born so -- and there are no plain looks among us, but for one of us he was not remarkable, having a rather square face and pugnacious jaw. Nor was his dress prepossessing. Rather the opposite -- he looked like some minor retainer. His shirt was plain white, and the long-sleeved tunic he wore to the knee was gray with only pearl buttons for embellishment. He wore no embroidery, no jewels in his hair or on his hands, and even his boot tops were plain fur rather than a handspan of embossed work. He was watching me because I was beautiful, and so I turned in the dance, knowing his eyes were on me, and smiled all the more warmly to my partner.  
  
Even with my back to him I felt his eyes on me like thought, as though I saw myself for a moment as he must see me, summer incarnate in a gown of green and gold, enameled butterflies in my golden hair. It fell in ripples over my shoulders in the dance, and when I came round again he was watching still. I smiled at him and he did not look away and sketched a little bow.  
  
Not a retainer then, afraid to be caught gaping. He was someone, or thought he was. His quiet confidence appealed to me.   
  
When the dance ended I sought Luthien and put my hand on my arm. "Who is that man?" I asked. "The one in gray who has just come in?"  
  
She looked around the others, standing on tiptoe as she was a head shorter than I, curious and intense. Then she shrugged. "Oh, I thought for a moment you meant someone interesting. That is just my cousin. He has been hunting in the Wild and must have just returned. He prefers the woods in winter to the court. His name is Celeborn."

It did not take too many figures more to find myself standing next to him when the dance changed. I am a tall woman, and we were of a height, though he was much broader of shoulder and build, strong rather than wiry as so many of us are. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was looking at me too.  
  
"Aren't you going to ask me to dance?" I asked.  
  
"Do you want me to?" There was an amusement in his eyes that I liked.  
  
"Maybe," I said, looking over my shoulder at him.  
  
"I don't see the point of asking for a maybe," Celeborn said. "I like a woman who knows her own mind."  
  
"No one has ever accused me of not knowing my own mind," I said. "Being headstrong, yes. But no one who knows me says I cannot decide."  
  
The smile in his eyes grew, and he bent over my hand with exaggerated grace. "Then will you dance with me?"  
  
"Yes," I said.  
  
Unfortunately it was a lively dance with much changing of partners in the figures, and there was little chance to talk and no touch except his fingers on mine. He was graceful if not showy, and the turns gave me ample opportunity to flirt, cutting my eyes at him as I came around and lifting my skirts to demonstrate my light steps. By the time it ended he was laughing.  
  
"You dance well," he said.  
  
"Thank you," I replied. "So do you. For a hunter in the wild."  
  
"And you are polite for a lady of the Noldor," he said.  
  
I could not help but laugh in return. "Point, my lord. So we have both asked Luthien about one another. Pray, what did she tell you of me?"  
  
"That you are her dear friend," he said, steering me out of the way of the dance forming up and over by a half wall that separated the hall from the chambers beyond with a series of arches. "That you are the sister of Finrod Felagund, and that all kinds of trouble follows you."  
  
"The first two things are true," I said. "The last? It is more true that I have a knack for getting into trouble. Or for making trouble, if you are not my friend."  
  
He put his head to the side. "Do you always begin flirtations with threats?"  
  
"That wasn't…"   
  
"It sounded like a threat."  
  
That cast me into confusion, and I looked away from his bright eyes. They were dark, as those of few of our people are, night colored rather than pale. "I did not mean it so."  
  
"It is hard to dally with a woman so armored," Celeborn observed. "I fear to come within reach of your lance, much less your barbed tongue."  
  
"Did I say I wished dalliance?" I lifted my head to him, and to my horror there was an actual catch in my voice, as though he had cut through some armor I did not know I wore.  
  
"You sized me up like a stud horse," he said. "And displayed your charms most lavishly, so I presumed you knew your mind. Am I not as pleasing as I first seemed?"  
  
"You are pleasing enough," I said. In truth I did not know what was the matter, nor why I should care what he thought of me or if he thought me a tease. "And you dance well."  
  
His face was grave now, and his eyes searched my face as though he sought the right words. "But it takes more than dancing to win your heart?"  
  
I did not look away from those serious eyes. "My lord, it will take long ages of the world for anyone to win my heart. But I have other things you might like."  
  
His eyes dropped involuntarily to the square neck of my gown where it displayed my breasts, and he took a breath. "And there I am fixed on the point of your lance, lady, and fear I make myself overly plain. You are lovely beyond belief, and how any man can look upon you without desire rising like sap within him is a mystery."  
  
"Do you feel your sap rise?" I laughed. He was honest, which I am not, and yet clever and fair enough to leave me wordless.  
  
"If you would call it that." His eyes met mine again, filled with naked joy and desire.  
  
"Then you may aspire," I said primly, and gave him my hand.  
  
"And shall I consider it aspiration then?" he asked as he took it. "I am the king's nephew."  
  
"And I am a Lady of the Noldor, the highest and fairest of all the peoples of the world."  
  
"So the Noldor say," Celeborn said, inclining his head. "Fair I will grant you, but highest? It does not seem to me that their deeds are so high. And you are tainted with the treachery and kinslaying of your kin."  
  
"Nay," I said, my hand in his against the front of his shirt, just where his heart beat beneath flesh. "I am tainted with the blood I myself have shed with this hand. I am not stained by the deeds of others, but by my own deeds and my own will. Kinslayer am I, and the doom of the Noldor is on me fairly."  
  
He looked down at my hand held against his heart, and it seemed the world narrowed to us two standing beneath the lamps against the stone, though the court danced just beyond. "Why did you do it?" he asked quietly.  
  
No one had asked me that before, not then and not later, not even Luthien. "Because we were desperate," I said, seeing again the torchlit harbor, the white ships at their moorings against the starry sky and gray sea. "And because a kind of madness was on us. A bloodlust, a desire for revenge. A defiance, to throw all into the flames in one fatal throw." It seemed to me for a moment that the blood of the man I killed flowed forth once again from the heart that beat beneath my hand while his eyes fixed on me in disbelief and silent plea.  
  
"There is no mercy for me," I said. "No returning. My exile is just. And I will not have it otherwise and beg for clemency I do not deserve."  
  
"Then truly you are doomed," Celeborn said, and his hand closed around mine. "And sharing your fate means a life of blood and tears."  
  
"I will ask no man to do that," I said, and raised my chin to him. "So do not seek my heart lest you lose yours in the bargain."  
  
"I am more careful than that," he promised. He lifted my hand to his lips, a soft and sensual pressure just at the base of the fingers. "But see, the world is not all darkness! We have winter and feasting and the music is light. It may be that there is joy between pauses in your cruel story."  
  
My breath caught in my throat, and I felt my heart beat faster as his did beneath my hand. "And you are not afraid of one tainted with blood and treachery?"  
  
"I'm not afraid of much," Celeborn said calmly. "And there are risks worth taking." He gave me a long, slow smile. "Perhaps I can teach a lady of the Noldor a thing or two."  
  
"Perhaps you can," I said.

He was my lover before the night was out.   
  
Perhaps it shocks you that it was so. It is true that the Noldor prize chastity more highly than wood elves, who are said to do as they please with no more heed for propriety than the creatures of the forests they love, but what had I to lose? Like all of my people, I had no fear of pregnancy because we do not conceive except in season. I had no fear of my father, as an ocean separated us even if my deeds had not. As for my brother -- well, I have never feared Finrod. The idea that he could forbid me anything was laughable. Reputation perhaps should have stopped me were I otherwhere than in Thingol's court, but while he imitated some of the graces of the Noldor he was not of them and Celeborn was his nephew. And my heart -- there was the danger, but I did not see it yet.   
  
My room was in an upper cavern, a small round chamber with an oriel window that looked out over one of the halls below. It was well hung with tapestries, including the one that served as the door. My bed was a soft pad on the floor to keep off the chill piled high with many pillows. I cupped my hand around the lamp to light it, the soft glow springing forth at my touch, a globe of crystal containing elf-fire. The room sprang into focus, all greens and golds and bright clear blues like sun on warm water. Celeborn sighed, and drew me into his arms. We sank down on our knees together among the bright pillows.  
  
The smooth, hairless skin of his chest, blue veins tracking beneath the surface, the corded muscles of his upper arms, an archer's shoulders toned by the draw…. How can I say what it was like to touch him for the first time? I spread my fingers against his skin, feeling him in every pore, beautiful as a statue of a hero carved in cold stone but come to life, warm and strong and solid and real.   
  
I had danced and I had flirted but I had never known raw desire until now. When he laid my dress open to the waist, I arched back against the pillows, thrusting breasts at him in wanton abandon. His smile was delighted as he bent his head to my nipples. Bright need flared, brighter than lamps. The feel of his long, soft hair against my skin, the weight of his body against mine…. For a moment the world spun, as though I were transported by something too large for words, for once in my life all thought deserting me.  
  
It didn't stay gone, of course. Clothes have closures, frogs and tabs and ties and silver buttons, and the awkwardness of getting him out of his broke the mood. Thought came rushing back. What was I doing and why? What would he think of me, to give myself so easily as though I were no more than a forest girl? And for that matter, did some forest girl wait for him, trusting that he would never play her false? I knew from Luthien that he had no wife, but that did not mean he had no understandings. And certainly his hands were practiced enough.  
  
I ducked my head, my face against his chest, and he turned us together in his arms, as though he did not mind the pause. That was a wonder in itself, as I could feel his need hard against me.  
  
"A moment," he said. "To keep my head." His hands traced my bare back and then he reached down for the heavy satin blankets, pulling the blue one up about us both, its stitchery prickling against my skin.  
  
"You've done this before," I said. I wondered who. I wondered if I should ask. I wondered if instead I should reach, should see their reflections in his mind. It would be so easy to touch the surface of his thoughts thus, skin to skin.  
  
"Yes." A simple and honest answer. And there were their faces, as I laid my open hand against his chest, a tendril of thought for each one.  
  
"Women and men both," I said, catching a glimpse of the shape of a face, the shape of a strong hand, the curve of a breast.  
  
"Friends," he said. His voice was untroubled, and so I asked what I wanted to know.  
  
"There is no one you have made promises to?"  
  
He put his palm to my face so that I could feel the truth of it. "There is no one who has my promise. Friends. We have explored together, but not with the intention that it was more than that."  
  
"Dalliance," I said.  
  
"Yes." His eyes met mine without dissembling. "Our mutual curiosity and pleasure."  
  
"Just like this."  
  
"Yes." He tilted his head to the side a little. "If that's not what you want…."  
  
"That is what I want," I said. "Too long have I wondered and chafed at chastity. And I'm not about to wed so I can bed!"  
  
At that Celeborn laughed. His arms tightened around me. "Then perhaps at least I can satisfy your curiosity!"  
  
My fingers still brushed his face. "It doesn't bother you that I can see your thoughts?"  
  
"Should it?"  
  
I folded my fingers, looking away from him. "It bothers many. I can't avoid it entirely, not touching you like this. But I give you my word that I would never intrude purposefully on anything private. On anything you did not wish me to know."  
  
Head to the side again, he shifted so that I could not avoid his eyes. "Can you see something I don't want you to know?"  
  
"Maybe." I lifted my chin. "Probably. Probably I could take it from you if you did not wish to yield it. But I wouldn't do that. I've never done that." I waited for him to pull away, as any sensible man would.  
  
Instead his hand traced down my back again, skin on naked skin. "Well," he said, "So could I. I'm a lot stronger than you are."  
  
"And so we hold knives to each other's throats and call it love?"  
  
"We're all armed. That's nothing new. It's what you choose to do with your power that matters."   
  
Strangely enough, I felt something lighten inside me. I did not have to fear that I would hurt him. Or at least if I could, there was another field where the advantage would be his.  
  
"Can all your people do that?" he asked. "Command another's mind?"  
  
"Not all," I said. Truly I did not know what the limits were, or how far my kindred had gone into things that were forbidden. And yet I must give him honesty for honesty. "I am especially good at it. We are, my brother and I."  
  
Celeborn nodded slowly. "What can you do?"  
  
"I see thoughts on the surface of your mind," I said. "That, without even meaning to. I could see deeper if you allowed it. I can touch the mind of a beast or gentle it if it is fearful. I can use its eyes to see what it sees." I lifted my face to his. "I can hold a man still, even if he wishes to flee or fight." Long enough to put a knife in his chest, I thought, but those words I did not say.  
  
"But only if you catch him unaware."  
  
"Just so." I laid my cheek against his shoulder, turning into the warmth of him. "What magics have you?"  
  
"I have no magics," he said, stroking my hair as though he soothed some wild woodland creature. "No more than small ones, like moving silently or kindling light in globes of crystal or making a fire with wet wood. I am no loremaster or king. Just a hunter."  
  
"I make things," I said, feeling that perhaps I could say such small things in counterpoint to his. "Not dangerous jewels or enchanted swords as my kinsmen do. I make cloth." I ran my hand over the shape of his shoulders imagining the threads I would put there. He would look well in pale blue, a shade just off that of ice that would disappear against the winter sky. "I weave things that have a virtue in them. I embroider patterns that do things, that render you unseen or beautiful."  
  
He smiled, his face against my hair. "I need not fear that I have been taken in by any virtue on your clothes, as you are as beautiful without them as with them!"  
  
"You flatter," I said, but I smiled.  
  
"I have no need to."   
  
And there it was between us again, that rising tide of passion, feverish and fey, like a harp string that is sounded too long. "I want you," I said. "Now. And don't fear hurting me. There is nothing worth having that doesn't have a price."  
  
"True enough," he said, and drew me close again.   
  
When he took me it was like a stag mounting a doe, and I bent my head back with his hand along my throat, bright-dark friction and ache that only fed need. I gasped, seeing for a moment in his mind what he saw, the stag and doe in the winter woods, his arrow to the string but not released as he watched breathless. So much need, so much ache, and yet…  
  
"Touch," he said, and his voice was low in my ear. "I know you know how to."  
  
So far gone in desire was I that I did not even protest that I knew no such thing, my hand going where I wanted it, his weight on me half held by the pillows. Bright-dark, like the afterimage of snowglare, one deep rolling change, and I cried out through bared teeth. That pushed him to the end. Savage, raw, fierce, it took him, and the intensity of it shuddered through me too, feeling with him that searing climax.  
  
And then we lay together in the blankets, a streak of bright red blood against the inside of my thigh like a red lace on white silk. His eyes were closed and his chest heaved with each breath.  
  
Blindly, I curled toward him and he toward me until darkness folded around us both. The light had gone out. I had no words. We had no words. He groped the blankets around us and I lay on his shoulder in the heap of pillows, skin to skin and heart to heart.  
  
"You are sunshine," he whispered.  
  
"My winter lord," I said, and closed my eyes in victory.


End file.
